Quando ho cambiato fornitore di energia elettrica quasi tutte le offerte erano per Ökostrom. Quando carico la mia macchina è Ökostrom. Quando apro la pagina web di qualsiasi azienda, usano Ökostrom. Tuttavia quando guardo https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/72h/hourly sembra che oltre la metà dell’elettricità provenga da carbone e gas. Cosa succede all’elettricità ricavata dai combustibili fossili se tutti usano Ökostrom?
Who is using “dirty” electricity
byu/Even-Adeptness-3749 ingermany
di Even-Adeptness-3749
6 commenti
Did you look exactly what that Ökostrom is? This is not a trademark, they can sell you everything as Ökostrom. Also, industry doesn’t care, they want the cheapest…
Ökostrom providers do not guarantee that you will only get green electricity. They simply have to ensure that green electricity is produced somewhere (not necessarily in Germany; often in Norway or Austria). This does not necessarily mean that new renewable energy sources are funded. It may also be that the green electricity is already being produced anyway, they are now simply buying it.
There are a few suppliers who are actively promoting renewable energy, as you would expect.
More details can be found here (unfortunately only in German): [https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/energie/preise-tarife-anbieterwechsel/ist-ein-tarif-mit-oekostrom-und-oekogas-ueberhaupt-sinnvoll-8207](https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/energie/preise-tarife-anbieterwechsel/ist-ein-tarif-mit-oekostrom-und-oekogas-ueberhaupt-sinnvoll-8207)
1. You look at vendors for private homes. Only around 1/4 of electricity in Germany is used by private homes. Most electricity goes to industry and commercial applications.
2. Ökostrom does not always mean that you are indeed using clean energy. Some vendors sell “Ökostrom”, but are actually buying their electricity from dirty sources. They then use some money to buy “green energy” certificates for energy produced somewhere else in the world (often this energy would have been produced anyway even without the certificate) and claim that your electricity produced net zero emissions.
First, most “Ökostrom” is so called labeled Ökostrom. It’s basically not, you just pay for them to buy certificates from Norway. Now they use coal energy – on paper. Joke’s on us.
Second, most people don’t get “Ökostrom” contracts. Regular energy is still *sold as* cheaper and the vast majority goes for cheap.
1) To clear up some misconceptions: You don’t actually use “clean/green” electricity, you just pay for it and it’s balanced out – a bit similar how fairtrade juices and stuff don’t have to actually what’s in the jug, it’s just accounted. And that’s only if you are with one of the few real renewable electricity providers (I believe Lichtblick and Naturstrom e.g.). You just “use” what’s coming out of the socket in your local grid.
Also: No, not all offers are “Ökostrom”. Not even most I believe. And even less of those that claim they are even are real “Ökostrom” under more scrutiny.
Having said that:
2) Many people just go to check24 or something like that and get what’s the cheapest offer. Many (probably many more) just stay with their (local) provider and whatever they offer.
3) if you are interested, just search the “Strommix” of any provider, e.g. your local Stadtwerke. They will have charts with “their” electricity mix available online. E.g. https://sw-i.de/blog/news/strommix-das-steckt-in-ihrem-strom/
4) Industrial electricity is a another, different thing.
First of all you look at the wrong graph. You are set to 72h instead of 1 year. Our energy mix for 2024 is 62% renewable. Ökostrom doesnt mean anything when you are consuming at a time that is called Dunkelflaute.
Also if you this worried about CO2 you need to know that hydro is by far the best source of carbon free electricity which we got the least amount when compared to our neighbours
This site is much more reputable because its from Fraunhofer Institute
[https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&interval=year&year=2024](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&interval=year&year=2024)